A Suicide Note, II.
There was a very dim light at the end of the tunnel,
He was getting tired of pushing on towards the end of the tunnel,
It seemed as if it was endless cause he had been walking for a while now,
He was in this tunnel since he completed studies,
His hope was diminishing cause he was getting tired and worn out,
He was still staring at the skies as old memories danced in his head,
The number of times he had applied for jobs with no avail,
The number of times he tried to keep a business running to no avail,
The scars he had left behind as he tried to survive day and night,
On the filthy streets of downtown Nairobi loading heavy bags on trucks by night,
Until he was set up and a few maize bags went missing and he was fired outright,
When he set up a clothes stall until the open market was razed down by a tragic fire,
His teeth gnashed as he remembered countless nights without food or hope,
He still stood outside his shack holding the brown envelope and the brown rope…
He ignored the stench coming from the drain cause he was used,
The screams of unbothered children playing in the mad,
Completely unaware of the life awaiting them and he was jealous for a moment,
The world was drenched in a lethal cocktail of malice and petty, he thought,
He was deaf to the loud hooting of matatus picking town-bound passengers,
People just ambled by like programmed zombies and left the conductors yelling hoarse,
And to the colossal gabage trucks coming to dump waste from Rich neighborhoods,
Un-bothered by the chocking smell of a rotting carcass of a dog ran over by a car probably a week ago,
Dogs didn’t matter here and humans were catching up now,
He recalled that time he spent in jail for hawking on the streets of uptown Nairobi,
Life was better behind bars cause life outside had caught up with jail conditions,
And after being set free he spent his evenings in bars after long barren days cause,
No one would give him a job with his criminal record after running ground checks,
He was surprised how a bar in a slum could be so crowded,
People here here seemed to have swallowed a humble pie and accepted the inequalities of life and moved on,
He switched to illicit liquor dens cause he couldn’t afford even the cheapest beer anymore,
His mind was now in a haze and crowded with self pity and chronic remorse…
He had unanswered calls and texts from folks back at home but his mind was still so far,
Still standing outside his shack lookind at the tall buildings in the city not very afar,
Memories of a promise he made to his little sister back at home crawled back,
He owed her a necklace as a gift and Christmas was drawing nigh,
Nothing tormented him much than these kind of thoughts,
Promises are easy to make just like babies but hard to deliver,
He felt a sting of embarrassment on his ego deeper than ever,
But something else made him so empty and his knees always got weak at this thought,
Back at home his girlfriend was 2 months pregnant,
Who will my suicide note go to, he wondered,
Is it my mother,
Is it my girlfriend,
Is it my unborn child,
He stopped at the unborn child and stared at the kids playing outside,
And who are now smeared with filth yet so cheerful,
With their parents hawking fish, cereals and groceries next to the road and un-bothered,
It ironically looked beautiful as he loosened the grip on the rope,
And tightened the grip on the other hand with the envelope,
Bitterness was everporating, condensing and coming down as warm drops of hope,
He turned back and unlocked the loose door to his little shack,
Put back the rope then the suicide note and murmured, “am gonna try this one time, this one last time”,
He walked out with the envelope as he straightened his old tie,
He was gonna try to get a job for this one last time,
This one last time, for his unborn child,
Just this one last time…
✍
